Fall TV Preview: Booth and Brennan Will Marry in Season 9 of ‘Bones’ — But Not Without Some Hard Feelings

When we last left Special Agent Seeley Booth (David Boreanaz) and Dr. Temperance Brennan (Emily Deschanel) on “Bones,” Brennan had finally broken down and proposed marriage to Booth, who happily accepted. But then, Pelant (Andrew Leeds) got into the mix and forced Booth to break the engagement and extracted a promise that he would not tell Brennan why, or Pelant would kill five innocent people.

“We open the season and their relationship is not in a good place,” Deschanel tells xfinityTV. “Brennan is really sad. She doesn’t understand why Booth did that. She feels really hurt and rejected. She finally opened up and got so painfully hurt.”

Booth is doing his best to smooth things over, and he will turn to some friends from his past to get some advice on how to move forward. Giving that counseling, for an episode or two in Season 9, will be guest star Freddie Prinze Jr., who will play Danny, a CIA agent and an old buddy of Booth’s, while Mather Zickel will appear as Booth’s former spiritual advisor, Aldo Coulter.

“I think, the relationships with his past buddies will help him figure things out,” Boreanaz says. “But they may cause more problems, who knows?”

Executive producer Hart Hanson did reveal at ComicCon in July that Booth and Brennan will tie the knot this season, but it won’t happen when or how viewers will expect it.

So does that mean that Brennan easily forgives Booth? Deschanel thinks that her character will take the high road, saying, “I think it is logical enough that Brennan might accept it pretty easily — or as easily as one could. It is just getting to the place where he can tell me and why.”

But before we get to that point, there is going to be tension between the couple, which they have to deal with to be able to work together, not to mention live together as they parent their daughter Christine.

“The first episode for Season 9 will have a lot of questions to answer from within ourselves,” Boreanaz says. “These characters will have to deal with that as they solve crimes, as they are around each other, as they deal with other people who don’t understand why my character called it off, so it will be really hard in the beginning and as the episodes progress, I think, we will find some light in certain areas, where we will be able to breathe it out a little and see what happens.”

If you love the “Easter eggs” on “Bones,” but you don’t understand what the clock with the time set to 4:47 signifies — which has appeared at least three times to date — don’t feel bad. Neither do the stars.

“I know it goes back to the fantasy episode in terms of the time that was on the clock was the same time as was on the clock when Booth was in his coma,” Deschanel says. “There are some symbolic things but I still don’t really understand it.”

The Cast of "Bones" (Photo: FOX)

One thing that won’t change in Season 9 is the banter at the end of each episode. Deschanel reveals that she calls Boreanaz “Last Word Dave,” because he always has to have the last word — scripted or not. That said, since the two actors have been playing these roles going on nine years, they feel much more comfortable deviating from the writers’ words in these scenes.

“Because of the number of seasons that we’ve done, how these characters have developed, our working relationship, and how we are there for each other as actors, we improvise more now than we did in the second or third season when we were still trying to develop a show and a relationship,” Boreanaz says. “It’s fun now that we are able to go around the words that they write and really get into it [with each other].”

In looking back over the past eight seasons, fans naturally have their favorite episodes — and so do Boreanaz and Deschanel.

“I like the mistletoe kiss because that was our first kiss. That was big,” Boreanaz says. “I love the walk and talk in the pilot among the roses. I think that kind of established where they are at in their banter. I love when we’re going at each other with the fighting and bantering, it gets under your skin. I love those types of scenes. Also, the undercover work is always fun. There’s Buck and Wanda at the circus, which was a great episode. Then there was Tony and Roxy in Las Vegas. I loved them, but it took Emily a long time to get her nails on.”

“They were press on nails, so it didn’t take that long, but they kept coming off,” Deschanel rejoins. But she has her favorite episodes, too: “I thought it was fun in the 100th episode when we went back and saw how they met. That was cool. That was fun to shoot. As for quintessential scenes for our characters, I thought that the proposal scene and the end scene for my character was a huge turning point, so I thought the last season finale was kind of pivotal, but there are so many different ones.”

“Bones” returns with all new episodes for Season 9 on Monday, Sept. 16 at 8/7c on FOX.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.